Chapter 390

At San Cha mountain’s peak, a grey plain bleeds into view through the new hole, dreamlike and veiled, and the crowd freezes, no one moving. At Xiao Mang’s signal, a planted Gu Master leaps through, activates three Gu worms where the barrier would once have allowed none, then leaps back out to thank him loudly. The crowd, convinced the risk has dropped, surges in after him, cheering Xiao Mang as a righteous role model and praising him and his sick elder brother Xiao Shan as a pair of dragon and tiger brothers. Xiao Mang smiles warmly at them. He is scoffing at them inwardly as fools. ^{ch. 390}

His own reasons are uglier than the crowd knows. He has arrived too late, after Tie Mu Bai and Wu Gui already claimed King Xin and King Quan’s inheritances, having only been allowed to come at all because his father and the elders were distracted by his brother Xiao Shan’s illness. He privately wishes Xiao Shan would die so the succession would fall to him. Tearing the hole open is his own play: every new arrival will strain the blessed land’s heavenly power further, and whatever remains, he means to seize entirely for himself. ^{ch. 390}

Two hours into walking Bai Ning Bing through her formation, Fang Yuan feels the ground shake. Xiao Mang has broken the barrier, and the blessed land has fallen into chaos. Fang Yuan is not troubled. He has seen this exact turn before, in his previous life, and welcomes the chaos as cover to buy himself more time. ^{ch. 390}

Then the land spirit finds something it had missed until it moved: a rank five Gu Master hidden among the crowd, skilled enough to deceive its senses. The image shows a young man with waist length black hair and deep purple eyes, radiating an unbridled, world disregarding aura. Fang Yuan recognizes him at once: Mo Wu Tian, a demonic path genius carrying an inherited ancient lineage as a soul path Gu Master, whose reputation and strength put him beyond Fang Yuan’s own reach. In his previous life’s memory, Mo Wu Tian beheaded several rank five righteous path Gu Masters at the battle of Yi Tian mountain and broke free of a siege unopposed when the demonic path finally fell. He never came to San Cha mountain before; his presence here now means Fang Yuan’s rebirth has already reached even someone of that strength. ^{ch. 390}

Mo Wu Tian senses the watching eyes, turns, and looks straight back through the image at Fang Yuan. He begins moving toward the fog with clear hostility. Pressed for time before Tie Mu Bai’s absence starts raising suspicion, Fang Yuan orders the fog raised and pulls Feng Tian Yu into the hall to help with the refining, leaving the hairy men outside as a last line of defense. Bai Ning Bing watches them go, a cold light flashing in her eyes. ^{ch. 390}

Inside the hall, its bronze tiles stripped nearly bare after days of refining, Fang Yuan and Feng Tian Yu sit at the cauldron for the final step. Fang Yuan throws in the false second aperture Gu; the cauldron’s remaining immortal essence burns it into blue smoke and yellow light, which the two men work to fuse into grass that grows and flowers that fall. Fang Yuan then cuts his own artery and bleeds his essence blood into the mixture, since without it the finished Gu would belong to no one and simply fly free once formed. The blood surges the cloud into a red sea, then calms it into a blood colored field. ^{ch. 390}

Reciting the refining chant, Fang Yuan calls for the first of two lifespan Gu the land spirit has ready: a small one worth three hundred years of life, a large one worth five hundred, neither with side effects. He throws in the three hundred year Gu first. The cloud convulses like a serpent trying to tear free, and caught off guard, Fang Yuan nearly loses it whole, saving only its tail as most of it slips from his grip. Gritting his teeth, eyes gone fully red, he pours everything he has into holding on, knowing that if the cloud escapes now, every bit of effort behind it will come to nothing. ^{ch. 390}